


Mediation

by LiamLordofTrash



Series: Starvation Series [3]
Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Angst, Betrayal, Character Death, F/M, M/M, Murder, Pain, Psychological Torture, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-09
Updated: 2018-05-30
Packaged: 2019-05-04 05:28:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14585946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LiamLordofTrash/pseuds/LiamLordofTrash
Summary: After being captured, the remains of the RED team are struggling to remain alive through a series of unethical human experiments. Unbeknownst to them, a small team has been assembled by Saxton Hale to rescue them. Both groups are in a race against time, as the mercs grow closer to death and their rescuers try to out run their gradual acceptance of their fates.





	1. Chapter 1

He wasn’t certain when he had fallen asleep, but he figured the back and forth rocking of the van on uneven ground had caused it. He wasn’t sure whether he was still in the van or not, but either way he was on the floor somewhere. He heard the blaring of some sort of radio as he laid there on the floor. 

“Listen. You have put up a valiant effort, proving yourselves good test subjects. I would like to inform you that the respawns have been permanently destroyed, and every last one of the Blus who helped you  have been killed for what they did. You will all be killed, most likely. You however, have the potential to live. You must obey and submit, if you wish for survival at all,” the Administrator said. 

“May I ask a question, meine Dame?” asked Medic. 

“One.”

“Where is our Heavy?” asked Medic. 

“He is alive and is where you are going,” said the Administrator.

“Danke,” Medic said.  The radio cut off. 

“Why are you being her bitch?” Demo asked crudely.

“Honestly? I want some chance at survival.”

“Whadya think is gonna happen?” asked Demo.

“I am planning on the waiting game. I saw it work in the uh.. Well the camps in Germany- you know the camps.. I’m going to try to survive as long as possible until they kill me or we are rescued.”

“Then why ask something? Isn’t shutting up better?” Soldier asked. “I’m asking seriously, Fritz. You have a point there.”

“I.. I wouldn’t recommend asking questions but uh..” 

“But what? You did something stupid?” asked Soldier.

“Well if her  answer had been different the waiting wouldn’t be worth it.” 

“Whadya mean?” Demo asked.

“I mean I wouldn’t waste sticking around if Heavy wasn’t alive, you dummkopf.” 

“What was your plan Fritz? Suicide?” 

“Why not?” asked Medic.

“What?” Sniper said.

“We’re going to be tortured. That’s what they mean by experimentation. They are going to torture us until they kill us for scientific reasons. If I have a chance of living a life- sure, a broken, deeply painful life- but anything with Heavy,  I’ll go through this. Otherwise, yes, Soldier, suicide was my back up plan.” 

“How?” asked Demo.

“Why?”

“You know, maybe I don’t have anyone I’m tryin’ to stay alive for.” 

“What about your mother?” Sniper asked. “You need to stay for her.”

“What?”

“If my mum and dad were still alive I’d struggle as hard as I could so I could take care of them.”

“I don’t wanna die,” Scout said.

“We ain’t. Like Medic said- before the crazy suicide thing- we have a chance of living if we obey, like the Administrator said,” Engie said. 

“Prepared to be drugged,” said the voice again.

“What?” Sniper said. He saw the gas leak from the ceiling and instinctively grasped Spy, holding him close in some vane attempt to protect him. The moment he accidentally breathed the gas he was out. 

 

Sniper woke in a blank room. There were two beds, with only a thin blanket on each. There was a toilet in the corner. He sat up gradually. In the other bed was Spy. He looked around. They were stuck. Trapped. Imprisoned. His head hurt. He fell back, still weak from the gas. 

 

Scout was barely conscious, and he started to cough. He looked around the boring room. It had two beds, one that he was in and one that Engie seemed to be passed out in, and a really uncomfortable looking toilet.

“Holy shit. We’re gonna die. We’re gonna be tortured and die. Holy shit!” he started to panic and ran to the door. 

“Scout, we can’t get out. I tried.” 

“Oh no.. Oh no, no, please, no,” Scout said. It’s been enough- we’ve gone through enough we don’t deserve more torture-”

“I know, Scout please, come here,” Engineer said, taking him by the shoulders and putting him on the mat. 

“I’m so scared.”

“I know.”

“I.. My brothers always pushed me around so I always needed to be more manly so you guys wouldn’t ‘cause I was scared of ya and I know you hate me but I’m sorry and I didn’ mean to be a dickhead, and I just was scared and I’m scared now-”

“It’s alright,” said Engineer, holding his shoulders. “Shh, Shh, Scout. You’re just a kid. You’re just a kid.” 

“I’m sorry.”

“You don’ need to be sorry,” said Engineer. “You’re just a boy. None of us hate you, Scout. You irritate us, but we don’t hate you. You’re just a boy. You’re just a boy,” said Engineer, almost in tears himself. Scout would normally be insulted by being called a boy, but he was scared. Much too scared to care about it. 

               “Engie,” he began, voice brittle. “Do you think we're gonna die?” Engineer paused for a long time. 

                “Scout, that is possible. However, if you're obedient and you do what the Administrator says, you could live. We just gotta calm down and do the best we can to assure that we don't die.” 

“How… How likely do you think that we survive?”

“What?”

“How much… How likely is it that I survive?” 

 

Engineer didn’t know how to answer that. He had to do something, anything to calm Scout down. He decided to lie, to bullshit numbers in the hopes of making him feel better. 1/9 was .1111 repeating. That sounded awful. He knew it did. He wasn’t sure what to say. Well, the first time, when they had starved, four of them lived. 4/9 was .444 repeating. That was better. Still not good. He wanted it to get it to sound better. Some way to keep him from panicking. 

“Alright, so… Mathematically,” he began, as if he didn’t know it was bullshit, “Each of us has about a 44% chance of surviving. But, but-” he said quickly, before Scout could panic, “By being obedient you add-” He had to think of a number that wasn’t too exact or it would sound fake. “17% to your likelihood.” 

“What’s the likelihood we all live?”

“Very… Very unlikely,” said Engineer. 

“How unlikely?”

“Well uh… I don’t like to… Scout, nothing is impossible, but us all livin’ through this… It’s close.” 

 

“You’ve been here long enough,” said the voice on the radio. “That we know you are stable enough for testing. Today we want to try a psychological test. We know you can’t tell them apart separately, so we want to see if side by side, you can tell.” Heavy was already afraid of whatever was happening. He didn’t fear any man, but this wasn’t a man. He didn’t know what they wanted him to try to tell apart. Then they pulled back a large curtain and he felt as if he was going to vomit. The two Medics. “To make sure you try your hardest, you must push the button above the Medic that you believe is NOT your Medic. This will release a saw blade from above, which will kill the Medic you believe is not your Medic. You will be allowed to ask one question.” Heavy didn’t know what to ask. He paused. “Hurry up,” the voice demanded. 

“Uh.. What is my name?”

“Mikhail,” they both answered, nearly in the same instant.  _ Shit.  _ He wished he had never told the other what it was- he hadn’t meant to. What had he done? He looked back and forth between them. He eventually realized they could see him too. 

“Misha?” one said softly. “Misha,  _ please,  _ you know it’s me-”

“Shut up,” hissed the other Medic. “He knows which one of us is which.”  He looked back and forth, panic stricken. He didn’t want to kill either of them. 

“If you do not pick in the next thirty seconds, both will be killed.” Then began the countdown clock.

25 seconds. “Misha, please, you have to-"

20 Seconds. "Heavy, hurry, this is serious.” 

15 seconds. “Hurry! Hurry! It’s a waist to let us both die!”

10 seconds. One was almost crying, and the other was absolutely furious that Heavy hadn’t picked him yet.  “I am trying!” Heavy cried. “Is not easy!”

5 seconds. The angry Medic became deathly calm for a moment. “Heavy, no matter what you pick… I’ll always love you.”  Heavy looked at the buttons and pushed the one on the side of the crying Medic. The saw blade darted out then back in.

“What is..?”

“You must hold it down.”

“You said push button!” 

“Hold it down!” He couldn’t tell which Medic yelled that. He pressed the button and held it down. He hadn’t though about where exactly he was or the Medics were until he watched the blade go down, like a  trainwreck he couldn’t look away. The Medics were side by side, strapped to two seperate tables. The blade cut into the other Medic and began to saw into him, blood spattering the other. The saw got deeper and deeper and then his intestines started to wrap up and around the saw. He was still screaming. Heavy’s hands grew weak, and he could barely keep pushing the button. The man was screaming and begging and Heavy couldn’t even feel his hand, couldn’t even open his eyes. He had to keep his hands on the button or it would stop and they would both die. He closed his eyes so tightly he started  to see little dots. He covered one of his ears with the hand he didn’t have to use for the button. He just kept his hand firmly there until he heard the saw scraping metal and the screaming start to fade. He opened his eyes gradually. The other Medic’s chest was still heaving, struggling against death. Heavy clenched his fist. He hoped he had made the right decision. He needed to have made the right decision. 

 

He and the Medic he had saved were sent to a room, together. There were two beds and one toilet, and the room was locked the moment they got in. The Medic walked over to the bed and collapsed, nearly immediately. Heavy walked to the bed and sat down. He felt the Medic’s back pressed to his. 

“I… I need to know… I won’t be mad.. I just… I.. Are you my Medic? It’s alright if you’re the other I just… I have to know.” 

“You weren’t certain?” asked the Medic.

“I was rushed or I would be more sure.” He paused.

“Fine. Fair enough. But, ja,” he said. “I am the Medic that you’ve been with for  _ years.  _ I’m still a little insulted that you couldn’t really tell us apart.” 

“Was because I had no time to think.”

“I’m not stupid you know.”

“Of course?”

“The Administrator said you couldn’t tell us apart before.” 

“Why does this matter? He is dead!” Heavy exclaimed. 

“I was almost dead! It was a guess! You saved me on a _ guess _ !” Heavy sighed and lifted Medic up, holding him.

“What happened to always love me?”

“I love you, dummkopf… I am just… I saw myself die, today. Did you see when my small intestines curled around the saw? Did you see that part when they were  ripped out of me, when my esophagus was ripped up through my throat?” 

“Doktor, that was clone, was not you.”

“It could have been. Besides, I don’t think my brain could register the difference. I don’t think yours can either. We are here and alive and I am in your arms but I’m dead.” 

“Doktor, stop.”

“I’ve never been alright. You’ve never been alright. But this… This is going to change.. It just…. I..”

“Shhh,” Heavy said, wiping a bit of blood from his face. “Just be quiet Doktor.” 

“This is.. Beyond their kindness.”

“What?”

“His death. My death. They would not break their toys so quick I think. They want to keep playing.” 

“Doktor.. Lay. You need sleep,” Heavy said, forcefully pushing him to the bed. 

“Heavy… Please don’t leave,” he said, holding onto his arm.

“Bed is so little.”

“I need you here.” Heavy laid on the tiny bed, pulling Medic to his chest. “Thank you.” 

 


	2. Chapter 2

“Let us go first,” said Saxton. 

“Why? I can handle anythin’ you can, you mustache’d twat,” said Mrs. DeGroot. 

“I know, which is why you need to be out here so that if they come this way, we’re protected,” Saxton said, trying to sound genuine.  As he, Mags, Bidwell, and Pauling started to walk in, Heavy’s mother walked to his side and pulled the sleeve of his shirt. He turned.

“You are going to see something bad, yes?” she asked.

“Uh.. Yes?”

“What kind of bad?”

“There…”

“Tell her,” said Mags.

“There were clones of the whole team, including the relatives of everyone here. We believe they have been uh…”

“Killed,” Mags said. 

“They would look exactly like them as well.” 

“I understand. Will keep the others back.” He thanked her and they walked forwards into the Red base.  They looked around the base, moving through it, quietly and carefully. Then they started to see bodies. None of the Blu’s looked injured, besides being dead. They were just spread across the floor, in various arrangements. It was disturbing, to think someone could just be killed that way; no injuries, no struggle, just a sudden, silent death. Saxton got chills. Sometimes he thought about wearing a shirt, to avoid the chills. Oh well. It was fine. He looked around. 

“Oh God, what’s that?” he asked, looking at a mess of limbs, blood, and  a singular head attached to a twisted body. Miss Pauling walked to it. 

“It is… Well was, the Pyro.. and a dead ringer.. Combined,” she said, her voice tense. 

“Why did the respawn..?” Saxton said, then he looked up. It was destroyed.

“Oh no… They’ve done this to permanently kill the mercs.. That’s their plan. Death.”

“Then we have less time than we thought.”  They all walked out to the others. He started to explain to the others what was happening. 

“We need to hurry.”

“Have found tracks!” called Yana.

“What?”

“Look! Car tracks! They take them this way.” 

“Great! Let’s follow the tracks!” Saxton declared. 

 

Spy had decided to figure out the routine. He figured they were trying to create a sense of isolation, because the only other person he had seen was Sniper. However, they could vaguely hear screaming through the walls some times. That meant the others were somewhere. He could swear he could hear whispers in the walls. He would be happy for the company if Sniper were capable of remaining conscious for longer than ten minutes. Something was wrong. No one else seemed to have been inebriated as deeply by it as Sniper. It had affected him extremely. Spy was starting to worry that it might be damaging his health. They had been fed once. That was not because it had only been through breakfast, but because they got one meal a day. He had a long string off his suit, which he connected to a pocket watch. He then took a paper from his suit. He had the thin ink filled portion of a pen- he had never known what that was called, so he decided to look that up later if he got the chance. He wrote a note. It was simple. 

_ This is from the Spy. Sniper is in here with me. To whom am I speaking?  _ He then attached the pen and slid it out from under the door and tried to hook it so it would end up in the cell of their neighbor. He waited for a while.

“Spook, what a.. What are you.. You doin’?” asked Sniper.

‘ “I am trying to communicate with the people in the cell to our right.”

“Ah.. Ahh that’s somethin’.” 

“Lay down, bushman. You’re not well.” He was hoping that he could get in contact with the Medic so he could tell him what to do about Sniper’s condition. He felt a tugging on his string. After a while, the watch was thrown back out. He pulled it into his cell. 

_ Engineer and Scout in here. Either of you been out or fed?  _ He was tempted to not respond in his search for Medic, but decided to be polite. 

_ Fed once, otherwise stuck here. Sniper is not well, keeps drifting in and out of consciousness. Any idea where Medic is?  _ He asked. 

_ No, you are the first one I’ve heard from or talked to that isn’t Scout.  _

_ Same thing here. I will try the cell next to me and tell you the results.  _ He fished it into the one next to him, and after a while felt a strange tugging, like a yanking almost. He heard a soft echo of voices from that room, and then it was swung back. 

_ Demo and Soldier here. Sorry, Jane thought your watch was a bomb.  _  Soldier could be irritating like that. 

_ Any idea where Medic is? Sniper isn’t doing well.  _

__ _ Not sure if Medic even is anymore, heard some screaming the other day and cursing in German- I think it was German, foreign at the least and not you so. He might be dead.  _

__ _ I doubt it. Any idea where he is? _

__ _ There’s not another cell next to us but yours. Try Engie.   _ Spy sighed and threw it back to Engineer and Scout.  He assumed Engineer would have the common sense to read the conversation. 

_ Can I take the watch and swing it to the one next to us then get it back to you?  _

__ _ Certainly.  _ Spy waited, watching Sniper as he writhed in his sleep. He tried to be confident to the others, but he was worried. What if Medic was actually dead already? How long would it take before another of them died? He sat next to Sniper for a while, putting his hand on his chest.

“Are you alright there, bushman?” he asked, gently rubbing his chest. Sniper started to cough a little. He brushed his hand through the other’s hair. He heard Sniper gradually wake again. “Shhh, ssshhh,” he said as Sniper tried to say something or stand. He pressed the man’s chest down. “Stay there.” He walked over to the door and caught the watch as it was flung through. He grabbed it. 

_ Heavy and I (Medic) are in the last room. The false Medic made to control Heavy is the one dead. Make sure Sniper stays down for a while. Anesthetics can take up to 24 hours to wear off. It’s been 12- 15. We have been fed once and taken to a back room for experimentation once. The experiment was whether or not Heavy could tell me apart from him, and one of us had to die or we both would. Fortunately, he could tell us apart. The end was the other being sawed in half. He was supposedly killed, but I doubt they would stop playing with us like this so quickly. If I had to guess he is in pain right now.  _

 

“Hey numbnuts!” yelled Scout’s mom. “This shit sucks. Let’s get a car to trace these tracks,” she said. 

“What car are we supposed to-”

“Jackpot!” she said, running to a van. 

“That’s the Sniper’s van,” said Miss Pauling. “I wonder why it’s all the way out here.” 

“Doesn’t matter. Ours now!” exclaimed Scout’s mom, running to it. “Any idea were the keys in this bitch are?”

“Check under the broken part of the floorboard, that’s where he normally put them,” Pauling explained. Scout’s mom dug there, found them, and presented the keys. They started to crawl into the car, when Pauling stopped them and warned them about the possibility of piss jars in the van somewhere. They proceeded, but cautiously. Scout’s mom turned the key and the van blared to life. They started to drive after the tracks in the road. Saxton looked up to the sky. It looked like a storm was brewing. He hoped it wouldn’t come through. If it did, the tracks could be blow away and they could lose them forever. 

 

He had been banking on the others going first, and his potential escape plans were dashed as he discovered that they were next. He was slowly prodded along the hall, being separated from Sniper and being handcuffed. They somewhat carried Sniper out, as he still wasn’t doing well. He wasn’t sure where he was going. He was shoved into a room and then sealed in. There, he waited for several minutes in darkness until he heard the lights flicker on and begin to buzz. In front of him was in one chair Scout, in the other chair Sniper, and in front of him a gun. 

“You must chose.” 

 

Sniper was barely conscious, and could barely focus on anything but the loud voice over heard and the gun in front of his nose. He started to realize, slowly, what was happening. Spy, holding the gun, had to choose between him and- he looked over, head rolling like the bobblehead in his van- and Scout. He looked back to the gun. He was going to die. Why would they even do that? Why put him against Scout? They had to know what would happen? The only thing his foggy mind could really focus on was that he would see his parents again. Probably. 

“Spoi-” he began, slurred and tired. He could barely speak. “Spook I wanna tellyas sometin’,” he stuttered, more fighting with himself to saw it than Spy. “ I know what you're doin’ and I wanna tellyas that I understand it.” 

“ You.. what?” 

“I understand,” he said, putting his finger to the tip of the gun. Spy patted his shoulder.

“Thank you bushman. I’m sorry.” 

 

Spy pulled the trigger and a bullet ripped through Scout’s shoulder. Spy was absolutely stunned. What had happened? No! He had shot that bullet right into Sniper’s head. In a moment of stunned stupidity he looked down the barrel of the gun. He  then attempted to open it to see if there were any more bullets inside it to find it had been a fake gun. Why had he not checked? How had he not seen in.

“You made your choice,” the voice said mechanically.

“What?! No! No! I shot him!” he said, pointing to Sniper with every bit of his being. “I wanted him shot! I chose to kill him! I chose him!” Spy was drug out of the room, throwing the fake gun. He was shoved back into the room, and Sniper was drug in there with him. He sat there for a moment as Sniper struggled to get up from the floor. “I chose… I didn’t…” He felt pressure building in his chest. How? Why? Why had he not figured it out? He was the master of tricks, of figuring things like that out. He was the trickster, he wasn’t supposed to be duped so easily. He should have figured out what the experiment was about. He was so, so stupid! He gradually got up and helped Sniper onto his feet.

“I think I know what the experiments are ‘bout,” said Sniper. 

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise! I'm not dead!

He was paralyzed by pain, trying to move away from his own shoulder. Scout wanted to scream. He saw it- his dad had shot at Sniper. Why did he get hit? It wasn’t fair. It hurt so badly. He was laid on a cot, and he started to wonder why they hadn’t killed him yet. He looked around the room, trying to stay conscious. He saw to his left an empty cot, and to his right what looked like a torso covered by a sheet. He looked at the torso for a while, trying to make out what or who it might be. Too small to be Heavy, too broad shouldered to be Spy or Sniper. He figured it was Demo, Soldier, or Medic. He gradually reached over with his good arm and pulled at it. He wanted to know. Who was the torso. Who was dead. He had to know. He pulled back the sheet as best he could. He managed to pull it just beyond the face as he was wheeled away again. He locked eyes with Medic’s corpse, cold blue eyes glossed over. Scout reached a hand out to him instinctively. Scout wasn’t sure if in his mind he was trying to help Medic or hoping Medic would help him. He started to drift away from consciousness as the pain started to overwhelm his shock. He bit his lip and felt blood drip down it. 

 

Scout woke up a few hours later, next to Medic’s corpse again. He noticed some sort of strange tube going from the center of Medic’s chest into a tube that was stuck in Scout’s stomach. He started to panic and tried to rip it out, but his hands were strapped to the sides of the cot. He screamed and tried to writhe away from it and he yanked his hands as hard as he could. He couldn’t escape. Next to him the heart beat monitor was beating rapidly. He felt a deep pain in his stomach and his shoulder and everything was awful. He closed his eyes for a moment then looked over to Medic. That was when he noticed for the first time Medic’s chest was still rising and falling. 

“Holy fucking shit.. Doc are you alive?” he asked. The sheet had been taken off his face, and laid under the mess of tubing in his chest. Medic blinked a few times and looked to him. 

“Uh.. Ja.. I think?” he paused for a while. “I’m not.. I’m not your Medic, though. I was.. I was made for something, I don’t know.. I’m a different Medic.” 

“Okay… Do you have an idea of what the fuck this is?” asked Scout. 

“They.. They’re trying to weaponize self healing,” said Medic. 

“What?”

“Medics, we can self heal some, Ja?”

“I thought that went with the respawn?”

“It was powered by the respawn, Ja. But they’ve made a small power for it… They want to make a new team- one better than the Yellow.”

“Okay, I wanna talk about that, but first…” he gestured to his stomach and then Medic’s chest. 

“They’re studying my self healing…. But this is them trying to use me as an improve Medigun because they’ve broken the others… They need this to heal you, and they want to make sure that they can use the self healing with others…” 

“They’re using you to heal me?”

“Ja.. I’m like a medigun.. But alive. I… I can’t feel anything anymore… I don’t know why.”

“How… How much of you is left?” The Medic reached up and pulled down the sheet. He was a torso, severed at about the belly button, but still alive. 

“I am not sure if this doesn’t hurt or if my brain can’t comprehend this pain.” 

“Well I can tell you that you can’t believe how much this hurts,” he said, pointing to the stomach. Medic gave a weak laugh. “What’s so funny?”

“You’ve said something like that before… Well I think so… Perhaps not… Do you remember it?”

“Yeah… Why do you think I wouldn’t?” Scout said. He felt something start to drip into his arm and he started to feel better after the gentle burning wore off. It was relaxing. It was probably pain killers. 

“I… I was made, most likely, to distract or seduce or some how be an end to your Heavy. I.. There was something we noticed, a scar I have, a weird memory… At first he thought I was lobotomized at some point but.. I think that they did something to give me the memories I have. That’s why they’re off. They altered my brain to try to make me like your Medic, in the hopes that I would do.. Something.”  Scout was starting to feel alright and the depth of what he had been told was starting to be lost on him.

“You know what I bet it was?” Scout said.

“What?”

“They got a tracking device on you I bet… They got one on you and they got you to Heavy and they got you.. Probably hoped that you’d be with everyone else so they could just swoop ‘em all up.” 

“You.. could be right… And I was made as accurately as they could so that I could trick everyone…” 

“Eeeyyy! I’m a genius,” Scout said numbly. He couldn’t comprehend the Medic’s disappointment with his state, and barely understood as another man walked up to Medic or why Medic seemed terrified. But he was suddenly and violently sober as the man took a large knife and hacked into the remains of the Medic’s torso for a minute before letting him be as he struggled. His lose arm was forcefully restrained. Scout watched his body- well torso but that was all that was left of him- struggle against the binding as the self healing kicked in. Scout saw the wires start to pump red, a strange red between blood and the medigun’s stream, and it funneled into him. Scout tried to make a mental note to ask Medic about the weaponizing of the self healing. He would have too soon, he figured. It looked like they were going to suck him dry. 

 

The storm had come in. Saxton was starting to panic, trying gently at first to convince Scout’s mom to drive faster.

“Uh.. We need to go faster.”

“What?”

“Because of the storm.”

“Rain makes the roads more dangerous dumbass.”

“No listen-”

“Look, can you just sit back there and shut up?” 

“If you keep driving slow like that-!” The wind blew the tracks away for a portion, though they could still see the tracks. Scout’s mother got the message and started to drive as fast as she could in hopes that they could find the tracks again. The storm was getting worse. 

“I cannot see them anymore,” said Heavy’s mother. 

“I think I can make them out.”

“There!” yelled Yana. They started to drive towards where she pointed and eventually only Yana could still see them. She yelled frantically and pointed the best she could as the storm started to blow the van back and forth, sand blowing across the road like an explosion. They drove so fast and randomly they weren’t sure they were still on the road. Yana kept yelling and pointing and squinting, but eventually she stopped.

“What’s wrong?   
“Where do we go?” 

“I.. I’ve lost it.. We’ve lost it.”

“We’ve lost them.” 

 

“It’s all about guilt,” Sniper said. Spy had refused to hear any of his theories until he had completely recovered from the anesthesia. Their keepers probably knew about the watch, but they allowed it for the time being. By Sniper’s calculations there had been one experiment a day, as well as one meal. There would be another just before their third meal. He got most  of that information from the others. Spy wasn’t telling him much, he just kept trying to figure out why he had been so stupid, why he had trusted them. Sniper didn’t think he was stupid. “They want you to feel a deep awful guilt, to make you blame yourself for this. That’s what they did to Heavy too. That’s their plan.”

“Why?” Spy croaked. “Why would they do that? Why would they care?”

“I.. I don’t know Spy.”

“See! I was just stupid and I fell into their trap and-”

“You’re not stupid, Spy! You just.. I don’t know- maybe you just wanted to kill me quick because you had to work up a little nerve? Like of course you’d pick me, but killin’ me was a bit different. You had to work up the nerve to kill me because.. I don’t know…” 

“Yes, bushman, you’re right, I cared about you.”

“Yeah becau- wait, what?” Sniper asked.

“You heard me.”

“You actually… you care about me? A little bit?” 

“A tiny, insignificant bit.” 

“Well you have a tiny heart so that’s a lot for you,” said Sniper. 

“I don’t know what to do about this.. My son is.. My son is dead…” 

“What if he’s not?”

“What do you mean?”

“He could be alive.”

“How?”

“It could be part of the experiment- he has only shot in the shoulder after all.” 

“Possibly… But that would only mean he was in more pain.” Sniper heard a scream echo off the walls. 

“Did you hear..?”

“Yes.”

“It feels like night. To me. Like my body is tired so I think it’s night.”

“I think so too… What is the screaming then?”

“I don’t know.. Probably not our normal torture thing…”

“Normal torture,” Spy laughed. Sniper almost laughed with him. 

 

Scout was begging him to stop but he plunged the knife into his son again and again, as he screamed. He knew he was screaming, he knew it had been him. He knew the screaming was- but he hadn’t stabbed him, he was shot? Spy was getting confused, in addition to the guilt- the longing to stop stabbing his own son because  _ why was he even stabbing him?!  _ He struggled to stop. He struggled so hard that it felt like he was breaking away from himself. He woke up and almost screamed.

“It’s Scout,” he said, as if affirming it to himself.

“Wot? What’s Scout?” Sniper asked, gradually lifting himself up.

“That screaming was him. He’s alive.” 

“That’s good.”

“That’s bad!”

“That’s bad.” 

“He’s suffering- right now- and I can’t even get to him. I need to protect him-  _ I’m his father!” _

__ “Spy I know,” said Sniper. 

“I have to do something-”

“We can’t do anything.” Spy sat up on the bed, tucking his head to his knees and trying to focus. If he knew what kind of lock was on the door he could possibly make a pic of some sort. He could get out of there, but that would require figuring out what kind of lock it was. Then finding where Scout was without being caught. He started to explain his plan to Sniper. “Spy, wait-” 

                  “I can't wait!” 

                  “Engie will be able to figure out the lock I bet, but he's still sleeping. You gotta wait or you'll get caught.” Spy was determined to get up anyways. Sniper got up and grabbed his shoulder, pulled him to the other cot, then pushed the two together. 

“What are you doing?” 

“I have to force you to stay down somehow or you’re gonna get yourself and Scout killed.”

“Force me to stay down?”Spy was expecting a fight, but instead Sniper pushed him over on the bed and hugged him close. 

“It’s alright Spook,” he said softly. “You’re alright.” Spy weakly punched him once or twice, then gave in and just laid there for a while. Spy wasn’t exactly sure when or if he fell asleep, but he knew he laid there  for the rest of the night. 

 

The watch was still being passed back and forth, though Sniper seemed to be trying to keep Spy away from it for some reason. Demo didn’t care, that meant he got more time to talk to the others. He was especially trying to reach out to Engineer. He hated the idea of any of them being alone in there, so he encouraged Jane to talk to Engineer too and hogged the watch a bit. The others seemed to understand, as they followed suit. 

_ You wanna try to play some sort of game?  _ Demo asked. Most of the others agreed and those who didn’t were outnumbered.  _ Alright- We each ask a question and everyone has to answer.  _ Demo tried to think of a good question. His brain kept going back to alcohol, but he had to ignore that. This was for the team. This was to distract them from their problems, not remind them of his.  _ Who is the hottest guy on the team? You’re not allowed to answer yourself. I say Jane.  _  Of course, Heavy and Medic answered each other, and Jane answered Zhannia because he was kind of dense sometimes. That was alright. It made everyone else laugh.  Engineer agreed with Demo, and Sniper said Spy.  _ Oh you’ve got to let Spy answer now.  _

_ Not doin’ it.  _

_ Why?  _

__ _ I don’t wanna deal with what he’s trying to do right now.  _

__ _ What is it?  _

__ _ He’s sad.  _ Demo rolled his eyes. Fine, he didn’t want to bother with it either.  _ Someone else ask a question.  _

__ _ If we all had to kill and eat each other again, who should be first?  _ Demo had no idea who fucking wrote that but he was going to beat their ass. 

_ Which cunt wrote that?  _ He heard the watch be passed back and forth. 

_ Nyet.  _

__ _ Neither of us- Medic.  _ Demo sighed. He knew Jane hadn’t. He swung it the other way. 

_ I wouldn’t write shit like that and Spy is pouting.  _ Demo paused. 

_ Engie did you fuckin’ do that?  _  It was pushed back to him without any answer. 

“Little twat!” Demo said. 

“Who’s a twat?”

“Engineer! He fuckin’ wrote that. I’m gonna kick his ass.” 

“Don’t kick his ass.”

“You can’t kick his ass stupid, you’re stuck in there,” Demo heard someone mumble. He knew that voice. 

“Aye uh… Fich dich, Medic,” Demo said. Demo had been able to hear through the walls for a while, but he wasn’t sure that anyone else could. He figured it was because he had lost an eye. Then again, without his glasses Medic was almost blind. He tried to talk to Engineer again, and the rest of the team passed it around between them, all trying to get him to say something. 

“Let Spy try,” said Jane. Demo wrote it and sent it to Sniper and Spy. Demo heard the watch being sent back and forth before  it was promptly hit across the room loudly, and he heard cursing and yelling. Jane looked under the door for a while before shoving his fingers under it and pulling it in. 

“Thanks, Solly.” Demo read it. 

_ Can you help me figure out what kind of lock is on these doors? I need to save my son. _

__ _ Why do you think it matters? None of us are going to live.  _ They continued to yell at each other. Demo heard Sniper trying to calm down Spy. 

“What’s wrong with Engineer?” Soldier asked. Demo turned back to him. 

“I dunno,” said Demo. “I think it’s that Scout’s not there to be with him he’s just.. Losin’ it… I think it’s because he didn’ wanna lose Scout like that and Spy won’t believe he’s gone and… Things are just bad.” 

 

Scout tried to sit up, but it failed. Of course it did. He looked around the room. He opened his mouth, but it felt like cotton. He tried to lick his lips but his dry tongue had swollen and stuck in his mouth. He continued to try to lick his lips for a while. He looked over to the other Medic. His face was hollow. It wasn’t like starvation, no, Scout knew what that looked like. It looked like he had been physically drained, like a hyper realistic vampire movie. His skin was whiter than paper, the purest white that Scout had ever seen, made even more disturbingly obvious by his black hair and blue eyes. He looked so dead. The tubes in his chest were pumping like an oil rig and still seemed barely capable of bringing up any more blood from him. Scout looked to his stomach. He had been disconnected but he was still healing. Whatever it was worked. He was healing. On his own. He looked to the other.

“Medic, I know you don’t have much left in you, but please, tell me what your theory was on the new team,” Scout said, deathly calm. He didn’t have anything but numbness left, he couldn’t process what he was looking at anymore. He just couldn’t.  

“They want to make a team that can self heal. To minimize it. To make it… efficient… They’ve barely been alive and the Yellows.. They’re about to be replaced…” he said, voice raspy and weak. He didn’t even sound like a Medic anymore. He barely looked like one. His face was unrecognizably pale and thin, every part of his skin so sickly he looked like a prop, like a Halloween decoration. Scout nodded. He didn’t know. It wouldn’t matter. He was probably going to die. He would probably be sucked dry as well, just to get every bit of the self healing that was in him. He closed his eyes, not wanting to look at what he would probably be. 

“How are you still alive?” he asked numbly. 

“Physically I can feel nothing… I might be dead…. Only my brain is still alive…  Ich sitze in einem toten Körper…” 

“Medic?” 

“Ich sterbe… Ich sterbe…” 

“I can’t understand you…” 

“That.. is probably for the best.” 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ich sitze in einem toten Körper- I am sitting in a dead body  
> Ich sterbe- I'm dying


	4. Chapter 4

They had to stop and wait out the storm, as the harsh blowing of the wind almost blew over the van. They had lost the tracks already, then couldn’t lose the van. They waited for a long time in relative silence. 

“I think… that perhaps…” Bidwell began. “They had to have some way to track the mercs to find them so quickly, right?”

“Especially Heavy,” Pauling added. 

“So if we can hack into their tracking device then maybe we can find them the same way?” 

“Great idea!” Saxton exclaimed.

“How do we even know what they were tracking?” asked Mrs. DeGroot.

“Okay idea!”

“Zhanna believed that the Medic who was with Heavy was not the real one, so maybe he was a Spy?” Yana offered. 

“Or live tracking device,” said Heavy’s mother.

“We know he wasn’t a Spy and that he wasn’t our Medic,” said Pauling. “So the live tracking device theory is pretty good.”

“Cool. So we find this guy and we like.. Do something,” Scout’s mom said. “Seriously, though, how are we doing this?” 

“I have an idea of who can help, and I know where to find him,” Bidwell said. 

“Who?”

“The old Engineer.”

“He’s obviously been captured too,” Saxton said.

“No, not the Red Engineer. The  _ classic _ .” 

 

There were only so many styles of locks, and depending on what the building they were in had been- Spy assumed it had been something before, building a whole new building would be suspicious- but depending on what it had been he could determine what kind of locks it would have. The most common kind of locks were easy to pick for Spy, but that was usually from the side of the door with the lock. There wasn’t a lock or even a handle on the door from their side. Had it been an asylum? Perhaps they were in what had been a freezer. He didn’t know. Regardless, he started to form the best lock picking mechanism he could. He wasn’t an  _ engineer  _ after all, but that man wasn’t going to be any use. Maybe he had given up, but Spy wasn’t going to. If he wanted to die then that was his business. Spy was going to find his son and they would live. He would also help Sniper out if he would go with him, despite it being a risk. Sniper had helped him, so it was only fair. The others would have to find their own way out.  He had crafted his lock picking mechanism, made primarily from his cufflinks and the buttons off his clothes, breaking everything that he could to form it. He then started to peel back his shirt sleeve and started to attach it to the holes in the buttons. He swung the lock pick up, and it failed. He tried again and failed again. He continuously tried for about a solid minute. 

“What are you doin’ Spy?” asked Sniper.

“Trying to pick this lock.”

“To save Scout?”

“Why else?”

“Try swingin’ it lasso style.” Spy tried twice, getting it on the second try. 

“Got it!” exclaimed Spy. He paused for a minute. “Sniper.. Would you help me?”

“What?”

“Come with me and help me,” Spy urged. 

“Help.. What da ya mean?”

“You, Scout, and I are going to escape, together. We'll get the hell out of here and quick.” 

“And we’re leaving the others?” Sniper asked. Why did Sniper have to be so attached to the others? He refused to hurt them for his health, for his life, for anything. It was almost ridiculous. 

“Why do you care?” asked Spy. “Why do you care so much? We need to escape, and if we try to help them we’ll die. They’ll die. This way we can escape. This way, we can survive. If one of them had a way out but couldn’t save us I would want them to go. Genuinely. I can take care of myself, and if they can take care of themselves then that’s good. But we can’t help them here. If we escape we can get backup- somebody. I don’t know who, but we can find someone out there who will help us.” 

“I just.. I just wish there was a way for them to know we’d be back.. That we’re coming back for them.. That we can help them.”

“Well whenever we get the watch back we can tell them,” said Spy, wiggling the lock pick off the door. He pulled it in and put it in his jacket. “But if Engineer objects I don’t care.”

“He’s goin’ stir crazy I think. I understand what  you mean, and I agree.” 

“Do you think there is a specific reason that the watch hasn’t been run about lately.”

“I hope not.” 

 

He had two options, and it was incredibly easy to pick. Eat some stupid mushrooms, or his friend died. So immediately, Demo started slamming mushrooms into his mouth and eating them as quickly as he possibly could. He started to wonder if he was supposed to eat them in a certain time limit or something. He continued to eat them until there were no more mushrooms. 

“Look! No more!” Demo called. “Is there… any point to this or…?” He felt a bit tired and a little nauseous. He was pretty sure he had eaten too many mushrooms. He heard a muffled voice asking ‘how long it would take’. He wasn’t sure what it was or if there even was any point. He didn’t care. He stood up quickly and hit his knees on the table in front of him. His knees hurt really bad as he did, and he saw blood start to pour through his pants. That was ridiculous. He didn’t bleed that easy. He touched the blood, rubbing it on his fingers. “What the..?” He rubbed his nose which started to bleed He coughed a little, and he tasted blood. “Somethin’s wrong.”  He started to cough harder, he got weak in the knees, and his sides hurt. “Oh God… My liver..” Medic had listed off a few things to him to avoid, in addition to alcohol, which he had definitely not avoided. The other was mushrooms. Poisonous mushrooms could cause quick liver failure. The easy bleeding, the nausea, he was tired, all those were symptoms. They made him fail his own liver. “Oh fuck my liver’s goin! Oh shit!” He was abruptly drug out of the room by two large men. “Aye cunts get off me!” He was weak, he knew that. He looked down at the flesh of his skin, and it started to have a yellow tint to it. Or he was panicking. Both were possible. 

 

Sniper laid on the bed, Spy laying on his chest as they waited. He still didn’t want to leave the others behind. He had always worked alone, just been left alone. He hadn’t had many friends growing up either. He had gotten used to being alone. But then he was forced to live with the mercs. Though they were odd, they actually cared about him. He became friends with them, gradually. He trusted them. He kind of needed them. He didn’t want to leave them, but if they really understood that he was going to help Spy save them, then that was alright. Then he suddenly saw the watch come under their door. Spy sprung up.

“I got it,” said Sniper running to the door. He picked it up. It was Soldier’s handwriting, he bet, because no one else’s could be that bad. 

_ They took Demo and Enjineer is being angry and i need your help.  _  That was definitely Soldier, misspelling of Engineer and all. Sniper wrote back about their plan, and told him to pass the watch to Medic and Heavy.

_ I don’t care what they say, you get out and get help! That’s on order!  _

“How can he misspell ‘an’?” Spy asked. 

“Why can he spell everything but that?” Sniper said.

“Well, regardless, we have been ordered,” Spy said. “We must go.” 

“But Heavy and-”

“The watch won’t get passed to them. I’ll send it back to Soldier. Then we escape.” 

“I.. Alright.”

 

The lock pick worked, which was the most surprising thing to Sniper. He had expected it wouldn’t. Maybe just hoped that he wouldn’t. They walked into the hall, deathly quiet. They looked up and down. It had been a meat locker he bet. They made their way through the halls as silently as possible. Spy remembered which way they had been taken when he had to shoot Scout and no one heard him come back down the halls, which meant that he had to have gone the other way. Spy had explained his plans to Sniper a thousand times, maybe more. They walked as quietly as they possibly could. Sniper held his breath as they walked through. They found two back rooms. Spy looked at the two labels on the doors and picked one, Sniper following him. They crept into what seemed to be an improvised medbay. They walked delicately through the building, until they saw Scout on the table. Next to him was a torso that Sniper quickly noticed. Spy went to Scout and Sniper went to the torso. He poked it, immediately, and felt stupid. It then moved. 

“Oh fuck!” Sniper said, forcing himself to stay quiet. He was somewhat used to being quiet when frightened, as a literal sniper. He looked at the thin face of the torso on the table, that was moving, and he touched it again, trying to help it somehow.

“How are you.. Alive…?” He looked up at the heart beat monitor and noticed that it had flat lined, but it was still connected to the torso. Who was  _ moving.  _  “You’re… dead…” 

“You have to take the tube out of his stomach,” the torso said, pointing to a tube in Scout’s stomach.

“How?”

“You have to push it in, the pull it out, pinching it. You can put those bandages on the table. They’ll heal quick.”

“Thank you,” Sniper said. Spy had listened and started to. “How do you know so much ‘bout this stuff?” he asked, still whispering. 

“I’m a Medic,” he said. Sniper started to recognize the voice, but nothing about the faces matched. It was for the best that they got out then. If that fake Medic died there wasn’t anything stopping them from using their Medic. Spy helped Scout get up gradually. 

“How can we get out of here…” Spy mumbled out loud. 

“The vents,” Scout said, a little too loud. Sniper and Spy shushed him. They found a vent. Sniper stood on a table and pulled the cover off a vent. 

“Help him up,” Spy demanded, pulling on Sniper’s pant leg. He and Spy worked to help Scout up, and Sniper used his height to help Scout up into the vents. “Now you get up,” Spy said. “And then help me get pulled in.” Sniper got up and crawled into the vents and turned to Spy. They heard footsteps, coming their way and fast. 

“Spook, come here,” Sniper demanded, leaning half the way out of the vent. 

“I’ve realized something.”

“What?”

“I don’t think we can close the vents from the inside.”

“And?”

“They can’t know where you’ve gone or they’ll catch you.” 

“I swear on my life-” Sniper began. They Spy tactfully pressed the vent on, and jumped back down. 

“Stay in there or I’ll kill you myself,” he said, just as a few of the people Sniper recognized as guards ran in. Scout and Sniper writhed back into the vents, watching from a distance. Spy was dragged off.

“Why would he…?” 

“I dunno,” Scout said. Sniper rubbed his temples. 

“We can’t help him from here,” Sniper said. “We’ve gotta find a way out.” 

 

He wasn’t sure why they’d done it. He was even less sure as to why they had fixed him after they had caused his liver to fail. They’d put something in him, which Demo knew was a bad, bad thing. Soldier didn’t. He immediately decided it was wonderful because he was alive. Demo tried to explain it for a while but then gave up. It was alright. He was just glad that he had his friend there with him. Sniper and Spy weren’t responding, which had to mean they escaped. That was good. Help was coming. There wasn’t ever a moment when he doubted that Spy would escape, of course, but he wasn’t so sure that Scout and Sniper going along with him was such a good idea. Scout was loud. Very. Demo was also loud, so he got along with Scout in that aspect, except when he was hungover and everything hurt. He got along with no one then. He just wanted to curl up on the couch and sleep until he didn’t hurt anymore. That had been a simpler time. When his only big issues were running out of booze or a pesky Blu or his mother complaining about his job. They could survive though. Things could still be good though. He kept telling himself that. Soldier seemed to believe it too. Sometimes they said Soldier was stupid or schizophrenic, or both. Demo didn’t care. He just wished he could be as at peace as he was. As trusting. Soldier was a good friend. Sometimes he made fun of Scotland. A lot of times he did, really, but that was alright. Demo got back and him by playfully making fun of America or calling him a hick. It was all in good fun. He decided they needed to keep in contact with Heavy and Medic, and despite Medic saying that it was a bad idea to ignore Engineer, but he had been a douche to Soldier so he got to sit there alone for a while. He looked up at the ceiling for a while, sitting by the bed. They would get food fairly soon, he figured. That would be nice. 

 

Spy was being interrogated, which almost made him laugh. He had been through that before. He would have to pretend to break down so that they would believe it had worked. 

“For every lie, we’re breaking one joint,” said the man in front of him. 

“A joint?”

“I’ll give you an example.” He took the tip of Spy’s finger and broke it backwards, bending the joint till it stuck to the next joint of his finger. He hadn’t been expecting it and he cried out, then bit down on his lip. This was going to be interesting. “Do you know were the Scout and Sniper are?”

“No.” The next joint of the pointer finger on his left hand was broken next. 

“Did you make the lock pick?”

“Yes.” There was a pause.

“Do you know where the Scout and Sniper are?”

“No.” The last joint in that pointer finger was broken back, leaving the rolled finger lying against his hand. He cursed and bit down on his lip. “Why would I tell you the same lie twice? I don’t know.” 

“Did that Medic tell you anything about what we were doing?”

“No.” The other’s hand moved to his middle finger, but didn’t snap the joint.

“Where are they? You know.”

“I don’t know.” Another break. He gritted his teeth. He was lucky they had picked his left hand first, or he might not be able to stab anyone with a hand like that. “I really don’t!” 

“Have you been communicating with the others?”

“No.” His finger was broken again. 

“Where are they?”

“I  _ do not  _ know,” he insisted. The middle  finger was done.

“Have you been communicating with the others?” 

“N.. Yes,” he said. 

“How?”

“Why do you want to know?” Spy asked. “You already seem to think you know every-  _ Fuck!”  _ he yelped, as his wrist was suddenly snapped back against his arm. He had expected another finger, was bracing for that. 

“I ask the questions.”

“Who even are you?” Spy snapped. “Another one of the Administrator’s play things? Just wait till she gets sick of you too!” The man wretched his broken wrist around, nearly completely. 

“Answer my damn questions!”

“Answer mine!” Spy insisted. He could handle the wrist pain that came next, he was braced for it. The man would need to be one step ahead of Spy to get any really important information out of him. He gave up the communication simply for three reasons. Firstly, he was certain they already knew that. Secondly, Demo and Medic could both hear through the walls fairly well, which meant they could talk to each other and tell Heavy and Soldier what the others had said. Finally, though Engineer shouldn’t be excluded in Spy’s opinion, Demo was going to do that with or without the watch and even if Medic and Heavy tried to talk to him themselves he wasn’t in a particularly talkative mood and would eventually insult Medic causing Heavy to put an end to their communication, so when he couldn’t hear them he still wouldn’t be missing anything. So long as he could keep the other angry at him and distract him he could keep the important things secret. 

“You think I don’t know how to keep on her good side? The first one of my kind’s been alive for well over fifty years.” His kind. Then he was likely also a clone, a clone of someone much older. Spy quickly put two and two together, realizing he was likely face to face with a younger clone of one of the Classic team members. He could rule out who it couldn’t be based on who he had faced and seen closely. Their Heavy, Sniper, or Spy could all be quickly ruled out. Their Engineer as well, he figured. They also likely wouldn’t send in their Demo, Pyro, or Medic to interrogate someone. He was too thin to be a Scout. That meant this was a Soldier. Perfect. With all the experience he had with their Soldier keeping him angry shouldn’t be too hard. 

 


	5. Chapter 5

It was not a good day. For Sniper and Spy, maybe it was a good day, but for Heavy it was a particularly bad one. Firstly, the watch had been taken away. That wasn’t too bad, just made things a little bit lonely. Then they put  _ that  _ in their room. He had no idea what they had hoped to accomplish by putting it there or for a while what it even was. Medic seemed to have known instantly and he found it surprisingly difficult to keep Medic away from it. Well, he supposed it was hard to keep him away from the other Medic. His Medic was enamored by the way that the other was physically dead but still moving about. Heavy found it incredibly unsettling. He looked so thin, so inhuman that Heavy hadn’t even recognized him, and he knew better than anyone how exactly identical he had been to his Medic. Eventually they decided they needed sleep, which was odd. Usually the food arrived about what everyone had guessed was lunch, yet it felt like night and they were going to sleep with or without food.They curled up on one cot, letting the other have his own. They’d originally connected them like a bed, but Heavy was not going to sleep with that thing next to him, especially knowing that Medic might try to open him up and see what was inside. He laid closer to the living torso, keeping Medic closer to the door, but curled tight in his grip. He held his Medic close to his chest. He couldn’t really sleep very well knowing that the other Medic was right there, still laying in pain. His Medic seemed to be able to sleep in his arms. That was nice. He snuggled his nose into Medic’s neck. 

“Hey. Hey Heavy. Hey. Hey c’mon big guy. Deutch-bag. Hey. Medic. Heavy. Hey,” Heavy could swear on his life he heard Scout talking from the ceiling and he was ninety percent sure he had finally completely lost his sanity. He looked up at the ceiling with fear in his eyes, looking around. He looked back to Medic, who was fully awake and equally concerned. They sat up gradually, looking around the room. “Heeeeeyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.” The corpse even sat up for that one, looking around the room. Then Heavy spotted him, eyes almost shining in the light. 

“What hell is this?” Medic whispered, clinging to Heavy for dear life. 

“He’s up there,” Heavy said, pointing to the vent. 

“I wouldn’t have said anything but I was worried you were gonna bone,” Scout whispered from the ceiling.

“How and why are you up there?” 

“Scout shut up,” whispered Sniper.

“There’s more of them,” whispered Medic, clinging tighter to Heavy. 

“That’s Sniper.” 

“How dare you mistake me for Scout.” 

“How did you get up there?” Heavy asked.

“Is Spy there too?” 

“No,” Sniper said. “They caught him?” That day just kept getting worse. He hadn’t trusted Scout to be able to escape ever, and he doubted Sniper. They caught  _ Spy  _ out of everyone, which was further proof that Scout and Sniper had no chance to stay hidden. They heard a fiddling with the door and two trays of food were shoved in. They weren’t feeding the other Medic then. Medic hopped to the tray and grabbed an apple off it. He was getting fairly good at maneuvering with one leg, but Heavy hated to watch him hop. He usually picked Medic up and carried him around instead. Medic hated it but had gotten used to it. He walked over and grabbed the other apple, picking Medic up. He figured out what Medic was doing. He walked with him to the vents, and let Medic push himself up to them with his leg, popping the cover off and handing them the apple, then Heavy’s apple. He then pressed the cover back on. “Thanks,” Sniper said.

“Thank you, guys,” Scout added.  

“You two need to get out of here.”

“We gotta make sure Spy is still alive first,” insisted Scout. 

  
  


“There’s no fuckin’ chance we’re helpin’ you against her,” Cheavy hissed, pushing Saxton back by the shoulder. 

“Well we’re not fuckin’ askin’ you,” Scout’s mom snapped, trying to push him back. 

“I’m the leader of this-”

“Yeah well he’s still an individual,” Pauling argued. “It’s  _ his  _ choice.”

“We didn’t stay alive this long by making stupid choices.” 

“What happened to your Red team?” asked Mags suddenly.

“What?”

“You all wear blue, you’re a team, I figured you’re a Blu team. What happened to them?”

“They were bad at listening to directions,” Cheavy said, the tiniest hint of softness to his voice. It wasn’t pain, no, but perhaps nostalgia. That wasn’t hatred, so it had to be used. 

“What if he wants to help us?” asked Bidwell. 

“I… If he wants to die that’s his business, just make damn sure they don’t associate him with us.”  They went to him, with nothing but hope. He turned to them slowly, robot legs moving heavily as he tried to turn. He looked like a potato perched on top of them more than genuinely connected to them. 

“I don’t know why you’re comin’ to me,” he said gruffly.

“Dell needs you,” Pauling said, stepping closer to him. 

“And?”

“He’s.. Isn’t he your son?” 

“Yeah. He is. But I don’t need this,” he said. “We’re the longest living team the Administrator’s even had.”

“We’re not asking you to come to fight with us, just to help us find them,” Saxton said. “So we can save them.” Pauling pulled something out of her coat. She pushed it to him. Saxton saw it out of the corner of his eye, a picture of the old Engineer and a young Dell. The man paused, looking at the photo. 

“I…” he took the picture. “I still.. I can’t…” Mrs. DeGroot walked up to him slowly. She took a wallet out of her coat. She opened it and pulled out lots of pictures. 

“I have been blind my whole life,” she began. “But my husband had lots and lots of pictures of our little boy… Before he died.. I have never been able to get rid of them.. I love them. I can’t see them even, I can just feel them… Please, please don’t let this be the only thing I have left of my son,” she begged. They stood there in silence for a long time. He looked down to the picture in his hand. He closed his eyes tightly.

“I don’t wanna die… but to live knowing I let my son die is worse than death,” he said. “I’ll help you.” 

“You’re crazy,” Cheavy said. “Don’t relate yourself to us. With your dying breath you better tell them we’re not involved in this.”

“I’ll let them know you’re not involved,” he said, starting to walk with his legs slowly. “But if I have to die I’m not wasting my last breath on you.”

 

They continued to writhe through the vents, for what seemed like hours. Scout was trying to talk to Demo, when Sniper heard the door open again. He snuck down the  vents and looked in as Spy was shoved into the room. His left hand had been set, and casted. His hand or fingers had been broken. 

“Spy?” he whispered. Spy looked up to him.

“What are you doing here? Still? You need to-”

“I had to make sure you were alive,” Sniper said. 

“What?”

“I had to.. Scout wanted to too. He’s your son, after all.”

“Why did you let him stay?” begged Spy. “I need you to take care of him. I need you to get him out of here and get him safe.” 

“I… I need to..” Sniper paused. “Spy  _ I  _ had to make sure you were alive.” 

“Why?”

“I just.. I did. I need to be here.. I couldn’t just go on without knowing that…” 

“You’re.. You’re ridiculous, you know that?” 

“This may be the last time we see each other,” Sniper  said. “You know that?” There was a pause. Spy crawled onto the bed and stood near the vent. 

“Come here.”

“What?”

“Press your face to the vent,” Spy said. Sniper almost laughed. 

“Why?” he asked, pressing his face to the vent. Spy stood on the tips of his toes and kissed Sniper through the vent. Sniper was shocked. “What..?”

“Now you have to come back to me alive to figure out what that was about,” Spy said. Sniper was about to ask questions when he heard Scout starting to crawl through the vents.

“Oh my God, is that my dad?” Scout asked, crawling towards them quickly. He glared at Spy for a second, who just smiled up at him. “Okay, dad we’re gonna go now we just had to make sure you’re alive.” 

“Alright. Get out of here fast,” Spy said. “But wait until nightfall so you’re not easily spotted.” 

 

Night settled in as Scout and Sniper waited in the vent next to the hole they planned to escape from. They waited for a long time, infinity Scout was sure, but Sniper knew it was a few hours. He had gotten good at judging the time of day through the degrees of the shadows in his scope, and thought it was more difficult at night it was still possible. Though he wasn’t sure what time it was a few hours had passed. Sniper slipped to the front and pressed his foot against the grate. 

“Are you ready?” he asked Scout.

“Yeah.”

“Remember- don’t run unless we’re seen. Until then, sneak.”

“Got it,” Scout whispered back. Sniper quickly kicked the vent out then caught it with his hands, hopping out quietly with it. Scout followed, not as gracefully but not too loudly. Sniper looked around. It looked like they were still in New Mexico, as the terrain was desert-esque. Unfortunately, this left with damn near nowhere to hide. He was able to put the cover back on the vent, which would help them not to be found so quickly. He pressed his knees as close to his chest as he could while still being able to run and darted into the thin brush, Scout behind him. He saw a ravine, where a small river had once been from a distance. He decided it would be the best long term cover. He looked around for any sign they were being watched, any glint of a scope in the moonlight, and determined it was safe. He rushed into the ravine, jumping down and slipping, Scout fast behind him. They hit the ground, Scout collapsing on top of him. He waited, heart pounding in his chest, but heard nothing. The ravine was much deeper than he had anticipated, and he had probably twisted his ankle. He didn’t care. That just meant they had more cover. He snuck along the side of the ravine, Scout close to his shoulder. They kept walking until the sun came over the land, and finally got high enough to reflect into the ravine.

“We should stop and find a cave,” said Sniper.

“Why?”

“We’re exposed right now,” he said. “We have to hide until night at least.” 

“Alright,” said Scout. “Man I am so hungry.”

“Yeah. Maybe we’ll catch a lizard or somethin’ I dunno.” 

 

The Classic Engineer, or as it turned out his name was Fred, was working as fast as he could to track down the weak signal.

“Look uhh.. This fella ain't alive no more is that an issue?” Fred said. 

“ Not really,” Miss Pauling said.

“ Alright. Good. You think they'd keep the corpse 'at close to 'em?” 

“Yes,” Pauling said, “I.. I know how she operates. She wouldn’t burry anyone far enough away for it not to be a huge clue in the least.” 

“Alright.. I got ‘im for now. Just listen and I’ll guide ya to it. Just start drivin’.” 

 

The idea had loomed around their temporary prison from the moment they all realized - minus Soldier, who Spy had determined was incapable of making deductions long ago- that since they had already used up their supply of self healing blood from the other Medic, they would probably want more. Which would mean their Medic was going to die. Slowly, and the same way, but that was still death. Heavy was getting more tense and angry, trying to protect him, but everyone knew he couldn’t. Spy was trying to trust in his son and Sniper, but he was still worried. He believed in them to succeed, but perhaps not fast enough. In the very least the two he cared for the most  were safe. His hand hurt incredibly and it was difficult to eat, but he could manage with one. He continued to right back and forth to the others, but he was careful never to say too much. He knew for a fact they were being monitored still. In addition, Heavy and Medic and Demo and Soldier would switch off each night both putting their apples in the vents to make it seem like Scout and Sniper were still in the building. That was good. He hoped they weren’t though. He hoped that they had ran, and he hoped they would escape even if they didn’t come back. He would rather they never came back than get caught again. He waited against the wall, when he heard his door being opened.

“Stay where you are!” he was ordered, and he did. Engineer was shoved into the room with him. The two glared at each other as the door was locked. 

“You,” Spy said.

“They didn’ wanna deal with so many rooms,” he said. 

“Probably.” They just sat there for a while before Spy stood up and made a point of separating the two beds as physically far as he could. “My son is alive, by the way, labourer.”

“You’re so fuckin’ stupid,” Engineer said. Spy looked up from what he was doing to look at him. Something seemed off about him, very wrong. He cursed before, sure, but he never used harsh curses like that and Spy had never actually heard him insult a member of the team with such anger. 

“Why are you so pissy?” asked Spy. 

“Ain’t I got a right to be angry?!” he yelled. 

“You just never-”

“I’ve been angry for so damn long but I always hold it together ‘cause I gotta, you don’t know how much pressure has been on me all this damn time! I’m losin’ it! I can’t do nothin’ no more and it’s drivin’ me crazy and I did my best but it ain’t good ‘nough an-” 

“What is this ‘pressure’?” Spy asked. Spy had never had any issue understanding him before, but the more emotional he got the more his thick accent took over his speech and he wasn’t sure he had understood any of the rest of it. 

“Every time they make one a these teams they have one person who they threaten and that they tell ‘bout all this, and it’s that ‘ns job to keep the rest of the team safe an’ alive,” Engineer said. “And that was me. It was my job to make sure that we never got here an’ I failed.”

“Wh.. I mean you didn’t..” Spy was trying to process what he had said, what he had meant, what that meant about this place. For a start it was probably much more secure and filled with far more cameras than they had thought it was, which meant they had probably already caught Sniper and Scout and that they were probably already dead, but they hadn’t been informed of that to keep some sort of false hope. That also meant that Engineer had  known about the cloning and the experiments and had never trusted them enough to inform them of information that could save their lives. 

“Not even as good as  _ Cheavy,”  _ Engineer said, face in his hands. So the position of leadership Cheavy held was artificial? Had he told his team? It was obvious they trusted each other much more than their team did, as they all knew each other by their first names, trusted each other with their lives, and all fell in line behind Cheavy. Then he thought about the deep scars in Cheavy’s face, in the others, their Engineer’s missing legs, their distinct lack of a Medic. 

“Did… Did the Administrator tell you about this place?”

“No. My dad did.” The Classic Engineer. Who was distinctly changed from a photograph Spy had seen of him once on Engineer’s desk. 

“How did he know about this place?” Spy asked.   
“I don’t know- why does it matter?” 

“This is adding up to me now… The purpose of this place, it’s not to kill us, it’s to make us loyal and stupid- like them!”

“What? But why would they do all this stupid shit? Like your hands, Demo’s liver, killin’ that one Medic-”

“Because this is not part of that. This is experimentation, this has some other purpose, but the second phase is to force our loyalty. Your father knows about this place because he’s been here! That’s why he doesn’t have legs, why they’re scarred and twisted versions of their former selves, why they don’t have a Medic- Because they’ve been through this!”

“So what does that mean?”

“Well for a start, you haven’t exactly failed so much as done exactly what they probably wanted you to all along. Secondly, all of us but Medic have much more time.”

“I just don’t get it though. Why threaten me with this for so long? Why kill the Medics? I just don’t-”

“Patience,” Spy said, “I don’t know yet either.”

 

It was dusk, and the ravine was cold and dark. Neither of them could sleep so they decided that it would be better if they continued to travel. Sniper and Scout moved through the ravine quickly and for what seemed like hours.

“Do you hear that?” Scout asked for what was likely the thousandth time.

“No, Scout I didn’ hear it. You’re just-” Then he  _ did  _ hear it. An engine, a car, and it was headed towards them. “Oh shit, I hear it,” he whispered, pressing himself to the bottom of the ravine. Scout followed suit. “If it comes here we run in different ways.”

“Okay but Sniper I’m faster than you and I don’t wanna leave you behind I-”

“It’s alright. Just go, as fast as you can,” Sniper said. 

“Okay.”  They heard the car going along. It was loud, really loud. Less of a car more of a-

“Wait a bloody minute that’s my van!” Sniper exclaimed. Against his better judgement he looked out of the ravine up at it. It was. It was his van. “Which bloody wanker stole  my van?” he muttered. The van stopped abruptly. “Oh piss.” He sat back down and hoped that they hadn’t been seen. He heard someone get out. 

“Ey! Who the fuck’s out there!?” yelled a woman. Scout jumped out of the ravine and ran towards her.

“Scout what the bloody hell are you fuc-”

“Ma! Ma!” Scout yelled, running to her as Sniper gradually followed him out. It was Scout’s mother. Scout’s mother was the wanker who stole his van. Suddenly, more people got out of the van. “Ma it’s me!” Scout yelled.

“Jeremy! Oh my God, you’re alright,” she said, hugging her son. 

“Who is that?” a large woman asked pointing to him.

“It’s Sniper,” Miss Pauling said. Miss Pauling. Scout realized it quickly too and started to run back to Sniper. 

“Jeremy where are you going?” asked his mother. 

“Ma get away from her! That woman killed me!” Scout yelled, standing behind Sniper now. Sniper picked up a big rock, the only hope he really had for weaponry. 

“What?” Scout’s mother asked. “You did what to my son?!” she yelled, turning and punching Miss Pauling in the face, dislodging her glasses. 

“Ah fuck,” Miss Pauling said. “Look you don’t understand what happ-” She swung again and Pauling dodged it. “Look lady I could put you in the ground.” Saxton Hale got out next, followed by a woman Sniper recognized as Demo’s mother and the Classic Engineer. A small man stood behind Hale, looking back and forth between them

“You will put no one in ground,” and elderly Russian lady said, standing between them as well. Russians.. Heavy’s family? 

“This bitch actually killed my son! No one kills my sons!” Scout’s mother yelled, punching into Saxton’s chest as she tried to move him. 

“What the hell is going on?” asked Demo’s mother. 

“This bitch killed my son!”

“It was that or death! Besides, Sniper killed me for it later.” 

“Who killed who? You  _ died?”  _ asked Demo’s mother.

“With the respawns we used to die everyday or so,” explained Classic Engineer.

“My son worked with those! Why did he never tell me he  _ died?  _ When I see Tavish I’m gonna beat his ass.” 

“For dying?” 

“You guys we need to save the others,” the small man next to Hale said. 

“We need to save the others!” Hale yelled. They listened to Hale. “Everyone, back in the van, you two as well,” he said, pointing to Scout and Sniper. 

“I don’t wanna get in a van with her! She killed me!”

“Don’t worry,” Sniper said. “If she tries I’ll kill her again.” Sniper walked to the van, gradually. “Alright but what the hell is going on here?”

“Well uh.. The Administrator may or may not have taken over Mann Co from me and has kind of been doing these illegal experiments and things for a long long time trying to find out how to make herself immortal without Australium because it’s so rare and she is just very impatient and tried to kill you all because you didn’t produce results fast enough. She’s been using the self healing abilities of the Medics to keep herself alive without Australium and was hoping the uber could be useful but neither of those are permanent so she’s kind of replacing you all as we speak. She even got rid of that fancy new team she made- the Yellow team or whatever it was? All gone.”

“I had no idea about that shit, I was just here to pick up my son and maybe his dumbass dad,” said Scout’s mom. 

“Are you still with his father or…?” Sniper asked. 

“Hell no, I am done with that greasy frog.”  _ Nice.  _

“The rest of us are here for our boys too. And their wee friends,” said Demo’s mother, as if she was picking them up from a kindergarten and not a torture prison. 

“Or whatever Misha’s relation to strange doktor is,” Heavy’s mother said.

“Is he dead or alive by the way?” one of what Sniper guessed were Heavy’s sisters asked.

“Probably alive?” 

“I think everyone’s still alive but Pyro thus far,” said Sniper. 

“That’s pretty good,” Scout’s mom said. “There’s like nine of you right?” 

“Eight now.”

“Eight out of nine is pretty good.”

“Yeah, well we need to get going if we’re going to keep it that way.” 

  
  



	6. Chapter 6

He wrapped his arms tightly around Medic, looking across the room, watching the torso. It had stopped moving in the last few hours and Heavy wasn’t sure if he was still living dead or if it was finally over. He decided it didn’t matter. He hoped it was over for the sake of the Medic, it had to hurt to live like that. He jumped a little when he thought he heard footsteps. He heard a strange noise and gradually moved away from Medic, making sure he didn’t wake him up. He walked to the door and saw the watch. Engineer and Spy were alright apparently, though now that they had been moved in together.  That was good. Heavy would have punched him immediately and then probably apologized while Demo and Soldier might have attacked him. Spy was usually more level headed than the rest of them, but so was Engineer. Heavy had no idea what was going on anymore, but that was fine. He was going to protect his Medic and his sister and go home and nothing else mattered. His sister would probably want him to pick up Soldier which would lead to picking up Demo as well. He sighed. He didn’t want to bring home the whole damn team. He might have to take most of the team home. Fine. 

He heard a loud noise, and he stood up gradually. He looked around, and then heard stomping in the hallway. There was a lot of noise and he got worried. He walked to Medic who say up.

“What’s happening?”

“Don’t know. Loud noise.” 

“Well, Ja, I heard that.”  Suddenly the door was ripped off its hinges . Heavy wrapped his arms around Medic and ducked behind the beds. He looked up slowly.

“We’re back!” yelled Scout. The two got up from behind the bed and ran to Scout. 

 

Spy and Engineer were both shocked but for different reasons. Engineer was shocked they had help. Spy was shocked that they had actually come back. He had hoped they wouldn’t, that they would just escape and go on. But then he saw the massive amounts of people with them. 

“What is happening?” Spy asked. 

“Pa?” asked Engineer, standing gradually. 

“I’m here for ya boy.” 

 

They funnelled everyone into the van as fast as possible and took off. It was quiet and seemed unreal. 

“How can we be safe from this?” asked Spy abruptly. 

“What?”

“How can we ever be sure they aren’t following us and trying to kill us?” No one had really said anything since they all crawled into Sniper’s van, and hearing words felt wrong. 

“Seems too easy…” Fred muttered. 

“What does?” asked Scout, he was probably trying to avoid Spy’s question. It was important. They needed to be sure they wouldn’t be followed. Fortunately Fred was having similar doubts. 

“They just give up and let us go, an’ all.” 

“What if…” Mags began. “We went back and killed the Administrator and Saxton takes over the company again?” 

“Mags you hate the company,” Saxton began.

“This is about human lives, Saxton,” Mags said. “Don’t be stupid.” 

“How can we get to her though?” 

“Did she show up when they took ya?” asked Fred. 

“Yeah actually,” Scout said. 

“Well then. I got an idea.”

“What is it?”

“So they’ve gotten rid of every old team but the one that I usta work with,” Fred said. “So we go and ruin them and she shows up and we kill her too.” 

“They were your team.. How do we know that you have not alerted them of our coming so that they can kill us and look good?” Spy asked.

“I hate all of them. Especially Cheavy.”

“You worked with them for years.”

“That made me hate them more.” Spy looked around the car. 

“Fair enough.” 

“Wow.”

“Okay, nice,” said Demo.

“We hate you too, dad,” Scout said.

“Don’t call him that, he’s not your dad,” said Scout’s Mom.

“Amelia!”

“I’m not stupid, ma.” 

“Wait… So Spy is Scout’s dad…” Soldier began.

“Oh no.”

“So Scout is half French?” asked Soldier.

“Yeah, lad, ‘e is,” said Demo. 

“Ha! So that’s why you’re such a wimp.” 

“Oh shut up.”

“It ain’t from me,” said Scout’s mom.

“I’m not a wimp,” Scout said huffily. 

“I hope yer not,” said Fred. “Because this is gonna be one hell of a fight.” 

They trusted Fred to know where they were going, but Sniper didn’t trust him- or anyone else for that matter- to drive his van. Sniper drove, and Fred instructed him on where to go. Scout had kind of hoped for a big happy reunion and talking and being happy. It didn’t happen. Everyone was silent. Scout wasn’t certain what was wrong, but something was. He could feel it too.. It was as if they hadn’t ever escaped. He looked around the van. He was sat between his mom and Spy, who sat against the driver’s chair. Zhanna and Heavy were next to each other, the rest of their family gathered around them. They each had their respective man in their laps, Soldier sitting up and talking to Demo, and Medic laying on Heavy, likely asleep. Demo was sprawled on the floor of the van, not caring what was on it. Engineer sat as close to his father as possible, but made no attempt at conversation. His dad was busy Scout guessed.

He looked around. He was happy to be there. Not in the.. Wherever they had been. He didn’t know and didn’t want to know. But there was still an unease. It went through everyone. They were all tense. He still didn’t know why Pauling had done what she did. He didn’t care anymore. She was being helpful then so it didn’t matter. He just wanted her to stay the hell away from him. He was pleased that every last one of the mercs who had any idea what she did- which was all of them by then but Engineer- they nearly attacked her. The instant she had been spotted every single one of them put himself between her and Scout. They called him irritating and a ‘little shit’ but it was nice to know that when it came down to it they all really cared about him. He actually had to stop his dad and Heavy himself, as Heavy was much too strong for any one to stop him and Spy had slithered through them all to get to her. Scout felt loved. They were actually still between him and her. The road was bumpy. It was going to be a long drive. 

 

They looked on at the building in front of them. It had never looked so daunting. Fred had explained they had been moved a while ago. He didn’t know how long. They had been moved into the old Blu team base. They moved towards it slowly. They had numbers, sure, but Sniper had only two guns in his van. Pauling, Bidwell, and Mags had all brought their own. Sniper took the better of the two long rifles, and Engineer took the other. Spy had his kukri and Scout settled with a crow bar that had been slung in the back. Scout’s mum, Amelia apparently, had brought a bat. The rest of them were going in with fists. They didn’t have the weaponry, but they did have numbers. 

“So we’re just going to cause hell here until she shows up?”  Scout asked. 

“That’s the skeleton of a plan we have, yes,” Spy confirmed. 

“By the way, you stay here,” Soldier said to Medic.

“What? Why-”

“You have one leg,” Heavy said. “Soldier is right.”

“C’mon Doc, if Soldier can see it it’s really, really obvious,” Scout added. Medic was angry but agreed. 

“You know, you don’t have any legs, Pa,” Engineer said.

“Nah, I’m fine.”

“What?!” Medic snapped. 

“I got replacement legs, you ain’t gon just hop around like a pogo stick that ain’t useful,” Fred argued.  Medic was resigned to sitting in the van. Everyone else got up and got ready. 

“On the count of three, charge,” Soldier said. “One… Three. Charge!” All the mercs expected it and charged out, but the others took a minute. They raced in, hoping they could win by numbers. They managed to get inside. Something was wrong. Their Sniper should have been picking them off, or trying at least. They split off, searching around, and quickly realizing no one was there. Sniper started to worry Fred had tricked them, until he heard a loud bang. He went towards it, gun held close, and slipped his finger onto the trigger. 

“Why did you do it Fred?” Sniper recognized that voice. The Classic Heavy. 

“He’s my son I had ta-”

“You did this! You pissed her off!” 

“I had ta-” And then there was a struggle, and a snap. He walked forwards, pressing himself closer to the ground. Fred’s neck had been broken. Classic Heavy sat, facing away from Sniper, fortunately. He didn’t bother with the idea of a ‘fair fight’ or even say a word. He just looked through his scope for a quiet moment, and shot Cheavy in the back of the head from where he sat. The silence didn’t bother him, nor the loud noise of the firing. The noise that bothered him was that for a second he could almost swear he heard crying. 

 

They looked around the base for a long time. No one else was there. Engineer had to go sit in the van with Demo’s mother and Medic for a long time. They waited for a long time. 

“Think she’ll even come?”

“Oh yeah,” said Sniper, looking at a truck coming on the horizon. “She’s coming.” 

“We’ll charge the truck!” yelled Soldier.

“Wait- guys, what if we like blew it up?” Scout said. 

 

He didn’t just have to be good. No. That day, Tavish DeGroot had to be the best goddamn Demo man in the whole universe. Because this time it wasn’t just for himself or his team or for glory, no. This was for everyone, freedom, a future, and most importantly his mum. He would not let her down. They combined every last pinch of gunpowder and everything that could be even remotely considered explosive to the massive bomb them were making.

“How are we gonna get it there though?” asked Sniper. 

“What if.. What if we put it in the van and drive the van into their truck?” said Heavy.

“Who’s gonna drive it?”

“No one,” said Spy, “We can drive it with a sapper if we can get Engineer to fix it properly.” 

“You work on that.”

“On it,” Spy said with a sigh. 

 

Heavy helped Medic and Mrs. DeGroot out of the van and Sniper grabbed a photo of his parents out of his van. They shoved the bomb in it. Finally Engineer came back with the sapper. They turned the van towards them and turned the key, revving the engine, and letting it take off towards the truck. They paused, watching it drive into the truck, head on as they shot at it. Then it exploded, the heat so harsh and radiating so hard that everyone could feel it. Demo ran towards the burning van and Heavy did too, after making sure that Medic and Mrs. DeGroot were alright. He and Demo, and then Soldier looked in the van, as it started to die out. 

“Aye lads!” yelled Demo. He reached into the fire and drug something out. It was startling to see how exciting it was to see that it was the burning corpse of the Administrator. Heavy had never been so happy to see a burning corpse in his life. 

 

He wasn’t sure how long it had been. Months? Years? Spy didn’t care. He had kept tabs on the others, just to make sure they were safe. Scout had been drug home by his mother, where he told his brothers very fake stories about everything that had happened so there was less cannibalism and more ass kicking. Heavy and his family had disappeared accepting Zhanna, who had gone to America with Soldier. Together they had a son, Sam Washington Doe. Spy felt bad for that child, as he was essentially doomed to be an idiot. Demo and his mother had gone to America too, as ironically, his mother wanted to ‘see’ the sights there. Spy wasn’t totally certain where Heavy was, but after he heard a rumor of a one-legged German doctor in the depths of Russia, he had an idea. Engineer had gone home, for a while before he had eventually popped up dead. Spy wasn’t sure how, or why, but he had a bad feeling about it. However, nothing else had happened since then. He was trying to be hopeful. Saxton was in control, and he could stay that way. If he could just stay there they could be safe. From that at least. There were much worse things to worry about in the outback of Australia for a spy and a sniper.  He sat on the porch of Mundy’s parents old house. He had come back for something, though Spy wasn’t sure what. 

“Mundy,” Spy called.

“Yeah?”

“Do you remember that stupid question you asked me?”

“Uh.. which one, mate?” asked Sniper. 

“Very funny… Hugo.”

“What?” 

“You asked my name. Hugo.” 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for sticking with me and for waiting! I hope you're happy with the end.


End file.
